Pasquale's Angel is an alternate history novel by Paul J. McAuley, published in 1994. Set in early 16th-century Florence, the novel depicts a world where Leonardo da Vinci has abandoned art for engineering, triggering an industrial revolution during the Italian Renaissance. The story follows Pasquale, a young painter and pupil of Giovanni Battista Rosso, who, after the murders of the artist Raphael and his assistant Giulio Romano, partners with the political journalist Machiavelli to investigate. Their inquiry uncovers a broad conspiracy against the backdrop of tensions with Spain and a Savonarolan uprising.
Pasquale’s Angel combines steampunk-inspired alternate history, detective fiction, fantasy, and coming-of-age elements. The novel includes references to Sherlock Holmes, Edgar Allan Poe, and Frankenstein cinema, while exploring themes of scientific and technological progress and its societal consequences.
The novel received positive critical reception and won the 1995 Sidewise Award for Best Long Form Alternate History. Its companion short story, The Temptation of Dr. Stein, set in the same universe, won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story in the same year.
Description
Setting
The point of divergence in this alternate history is Leonardo da Vinci’s career choice. Forty years before the novel’s events, following the assassination of Lorenzo de’ Medici—killed in a plot orchestrated by the Pope—Leonardo abandons painting to focus on engineering. His inventions and rediscoveries, including rocket-launching cannon, tanks, and Greek fire, enabled the Republic of Florence to defeat the armies of Rome and Venice. During the brief reign of Lorenzo’s successor, his brother Giuliano, a purge of dissenters takes place before a revolt removes his dynasty from power.The Medici were at that time banished from the Florentine Republic. Leonardo, known as the “Grand Engineer,” established a university where inventions such as Hero’s engine, the printing press, and a steam-powered automobile (vaporetto) were developed or improved, initiating an early industrial revolution and creating a division between craftsmen (the “artificers”) and artists.
In this alternate world, Christopher Columbus, serving the Tuscan Republic rather than Spain, discovers the Friendly Islands of the New World. Amerigo Vespucci establishes peaceful trade relations with Moctezuma’s Aztec Empire. Tobacco, rubber, and marijuana become common consumer goods. Ten years before the novel’s events, the Spanish fleet under Admiral Cortés attacks Florence and its New World colonies. Despite Florence’s victory, aided by the Grand Engineer’s use of Greek fire, the city undergoes political instability following the fall of the government led by Pietro Soderini,Until then, lifelong gonfaloniere, Soderini had committed suicide during the Spanish attack before regaining stability. Meanwhile, the Grand Engineer gradually retreats to the tower at the center of his university, reducing his involvement in public life.
Summary
Part one: The Feast of Saint Luke
Set in 1519, the novel follows eighteen-year-old Pasquale de Cione Fiesole, a student of painter Giovanni Battista Rosso. Aspiring to gain recognition by painting an angel, Pasquale currently undertakes small commissions amid the rising status of artisans in Florence. At the annual Saint Luke’s Mass, a key event for the city’s painters, he witnesses a heated exchange between Salai, a member of the Grand Engineer’s circle, and the visiting artist Raphael, who is in Florence ahead of Pope Leo X’s arrival. Pasquale’s account attracts the attention of Niccolò Machiavelli, a former government official turned journalist, who invites him to illustrate an article on the incident. Soon after, a murder occurs at , where Raphael is staying. Machiavelli and Pasquale discover the body of Giulio Romano, one of Raphael’s disciples, in a locked tower room, holding a model of a propeller-driven flying machine.
The signal operator reveals Giulio had bribed him to stay in the tower, though the reason is unknown. The captain of the militia discreetly assigns Machiavelli to investigate. Machiavelli enlists Pasquale’s help in questioning suspects, including Michelangelo and Raphael, who hints at a conspiracy but offers little information. That night, the pair observe someone signaling from the tower and follow him, Giovanni Francesco, another of Raphael’s students, to the villa of Paolo Giustiniani, a Venetian mystic linked to Marsilio Ficino and rumored to practice sorcery. They witness Giustiniani kill Francesco with a poisoned smoke bomb during an argument. Machiavelli and Pasquale intervene too late to save him, but Pasquale retrieves a small glass-framed image Giustiniani tried to destroy. After evading the villa’s guards, they escape.
Part two: On Earth as in Heaven
As Pope Leo X arrives in Florence to public celebration, Pasquale and Machiavelli reflect on the previous night and examine the recovered image, which depicts Giustiniani participating in a black mass. Machiavelli theorizes that Giovanni Francesco had evidence of Giustiniani’s involvement in occult rituals and was blackmailing him for unknown reasons. They are then visited by Mona Lisa Giocondo, wife of government official Francesco del Giocondo and secret lover of Raphael, who offers Machiavelli a purse of florins to support the investigation. That evening, they use the funds to consult Doctor Pretorius, a physician rumored to practice black magic. He confirms that Raphael has no connection to Giustiniani.
After escaping an ambush by Giustiniani’s men, who had discovered their presence at his villa, Pasquale and Machiavelli head to the Palazzo della Signoria to inform Raphael. At the palace, Raphael is dining with Pope Leo X and his entourage after a presentation by the Grand Engineer, who unveiled an invention that creates images by capturing light. Upon arrival, they learn Raphael has been poisoned via the rim of his wine glass, suggesting Machiavelli was the intended target. The palace is then attacked by Giustiniani’s men using stilts and toxic smoke bombs. In the chaos, Pasquale is separated from Machiavelli but is rescued by servants of Palazzo Taddei and brought to their master, . Accompanied by his astrologer Girolamo Cardano and Cardinal Jules de Medici, Taddei questions Pasquale and informs him that Raphael’s body has been stolen. The kidnapper demands Pasquale’s release in exchange. To avoid a diplomatic crisis with Rome, Pasquale is chloroformed and taken to the Ponte Vecchio for the exchange.
There, the bridge is set ablaze by the ciompi, rebellious workers incited by the Savonarolists. Amid the confusion, Pasquale regains consciousness and escapes with help from his master, Rosso, who appears with his pet monkey, Ferdinand. Rosso leads him to a building where Salai, the Savonarolist monk Fra Perlata, and a captive Machiavelli—about to be tortured—are being held. The conspirators transport their captives across the Arno by barge, but an unexpected attack by Giustiniani’s men causes confusion, allowing Pasquale to escape with Rosso’s help.
Part three: The Interrupted Measure After reaching the Arno’s bank, Pasquale, Rosso, and the monkey Ferdinand spend the night outside Florence. Rosso reveals that Giustiniani orchestrated the conspiracy to obtain the Grand Engineer’s latest invention—a flying machine he intended to sell to Spain. Acting on Salai’s instructions, Giulio Romano stole the model during a visit to the Grand Engineer’s tower. Fearing discovery by the secret police, Romano attempted to send the model to Rosso using the semaphore at Palazzo Taddei. Ferdinand was meant to retrieve it but, possibly mistaking Romano for an intruder, accidentally killed him. The model remained in the tower, later discovered by Machiavelli and Pasquale. Giustiniani demanded the model, but Giovanni Francesco attempted to negotiate independently and was killed. The conspirators then distanced themselves from Giustiniani, who continued plotting Raphael’s assassination and allied with Savonarolist factions financially backed by Spain.
The next morning, Pasquale finds that Rosso has died by suicide. Determined to end the violence, he decides to return the model to the Grand Engineer. He retrieves it from Machiavelli’s home before Giustiniani’s agents can. To access the Grand Engineer’s tower, Pasquale hides among cadavers bound for dissection. Discovered and arrested by Salai, he is confined in a room filled with skulls, and the model is confiscated. The Grand Engineer later frees him upon learning of Salai’s betrayal—delivering the model to Giustiniani. With the Grand Engineer’s support, Pasquale and Machiavelli seek assistance from Signor Taddei to launch an assault on Giustiniani’s villa. The plan involves Pasquale infiltrating the villa under the pretense of possessing the Grand Engineer’s secret notes, necessary to operate the flying machine. The aim is to recover both the model and Raphael’s body while distracting Giustiniani long enough for Taddei’s forces—equipped with the Grand Engineer’s inventions—to strike.
Inside the villa, Pasquale finds Giustiniani performing an occult ritual around Raphael’s body, accompanied by Salai, a Spanish emissary sent for the model, and a captured Machiavelli. During negotiations, the villa is attacked prematurely due to a betrayal by Cardano, the astrologer secretly aligned with the Savonarolists. The building is set ablaze, and in the chaos, Pasquale and Machiavelli escape, though the model is destroyed. The Spanish emissary's death provides Spain with a pretext to declare war on Florence. As the republic prepares for conflict and offers Machiavelli a return to political office, Pasquale departs for the New World.
Characters
Painters and their circle
A significant number of characters in the novel are painters. The protagonist, Pasquale de Cione Fiesole, is an 18-year-old painter from Fiesole who aspires to depict the angel expelling Adam and Eve from Eden. His experiences during the investigation with Machiavelli shape his artistic vision. Pasquale is a student of Giovanni Battista Rosso, a 24-year-old painter nostalgic for a time when artists held greater influence in Florence before being overshadowed by pyrotechnicians. Financial hardship drives Rosso to join the Spanish plot to steal the Grand Engineer’s flying machine. Wracked with guilt, he ultimately dies by suicide. Rosso is accompanied by Ferdinand, his tame macaque, named after Ferdinand of Aragon, who dies during the final attack on Giustiniani’s villa when Giustiniani kills him, mistaking him for a demon.
The novel includes several prominent painters of the Cinquecento, notably Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, widely regarded as the leading painter of his era. He is dispatched to Florence in advance of the pope’s visit to help ease longstanding tensions between the Tuscan Republic and Rome, dating back to a war forty years earlier. During the annual Saint Luke’s Mass, a major event for Florentine painters, Raphael is publicly insulted by Salai. He later visits the Grand Engineer’s tower and is subsequently poisoned during a banquet with the pope. Among his disciples, Giulio Romano, implicated in the conspiracy, is accidentally killed by the monkey Ferdinand while attempting to deliver the flying model to Rosso. Another student, Giovanni Francesco, threatens to expose Paolo Giustiniani’s alleged involvement in occult practices after Romano’s failure but is killed by Giustiniani. A third student, Baverio, assists Pasquale by providing critical information during the investigation.